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Budget Allocations Fall for New AIIMS-Like Institutes

Budget Allocations Fall for New AIIMS-Like Institutes

New Delhi: The Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) was launched in 2006 to bring affordable and quality tertiary healthcare services to spread around the country. The mandate involved setting up of AIIMS-like institutes and upgrading state government medical colleges.

Out of the projected demand of Rs 8,398 crore for the scheme, only Rs 3,825 crore (BE 2018-2019) was allocated (45.5%). This information was supplied by the secretary of the union health ministry, to a parliamentary standing committee on health. This allocation itself was slashed by 4%, from Rs 3975 crore(BE 2017-2018).

“The committee is deeply concerned with the sharp reductions in allocations of funds for PMSSY,” says the report.

Over six phases, the government has plans to bring 20 new AIIMS campuses (Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur, Rishikesh, West Bengal, Rae Bareli, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Purvanchal, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Gujarat).

But even projects in phase 1 and 2 are stuck. They are plagued by low budgets and high vacancies. This brings into question how the government can possibly adequately scale up these six to a total of the 20 which have been promised.

“The Committee is perturbed to observe that although the PMSSY project commenced long back in the year 2010 with phase 1 projects, still the Department is not able to complete even the phase I projects. Surprisingly, new AIIMS are being announced and are being taken up for construction,” says the standing committee’s report.

They say that many of the institutes “suffered in terms of both augmentation of infrastructures and capital equipment due to time and cost delays.”

Only six are said to be “functional” (Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur, Rishikesh). All of these are supposed to be at 90% completion in terms of construction and above 75% completion in procurements. However the constructions here have been plagued by “inadequate bid responses” and “poor performance of design consultants and project consultants and the contractors, non-availability of land etc.”

For the rest, they are in the process of tendering, re-tendering, pre-investment activities such as topographical surveys and making of master plans and concept plans.

Huge deficiencies in human resource

The committee has also noted the massive shortfalls in staff at the various AIIMS.

For the main six new AIIMS (Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur, Rishikesh), there are 1,830 faculty positions, of which 724 are filled (39.5%).

There are 22,656 non-faculty posts and only 4,202 have been filled (18%). 2548 of these positions are said to be outsourced. They are supposed to fill  an additional 4,774 positions by June 2018.

“Had the department undertaken a critical analysis of the requirement of faculty and non-faculty staff at six AIIMS-like institutes, the present status of the vacant posts would have been addressed,” and “The vast shortage of manpower will crumble even the strongest infrastructure of these six AIIMS like institutions,” says the report.

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